Resurrected...Hey, that's how I feel, part 2

   

Almost six years ago, I highlighted a remarkable tirade by Michael Z. Williamson. In the time since I have only become more resolved in the sentiment that he communicated - and only taken more and more shit from people - even those I am close to - for it.  So, for example, when friends ask whether I support a $15 per hour minimum wage, I first try to explain that it is essentially a zero-sum game.  If employers have to pay a $15 minimum wage, then they are going to charge more for their products and, in essence, the higher wage is not worth any more than the previous low one. This does not even address the notion that, when human employees start to cost too much, automation is another alternative with a one time investment. For some reason people don't seem to see that businesses are not charities, and are going to pass along costs to consumers - including their own employees to whom they now pay a higher wage - or they will decrease the human workforce entirely.

Anyway, Williamson essentially said "I have supported a broad swath of individual rights in which I have no personal stake - but as those whose rights I have supported have ascended in power, they have attacked me and my rights."  Then he told them to fuck themselves. I agree. Interestingly enough when I, in essence, tell people who want to see "a living wage" that I will not support those who have not supported me, they cry "That has nothing to do with it".  Well, thanks for listening!  They often remark at that I have changed. But have I or has something else?  My original post on this was from 2013, so it should not be a revelation that this pisses me off.

For many years, I felt RIGHTS were important; that women have a right to choose, gays have a right to choose, that recreational use of drugs be considered a matter of personal choice - and that RIGHTS - in all their glory - were paramount.  That is, if we believe in one, we believe in all of them.  None of these rights is without a downside, without risk, but they are RIGHTS. Some, for some reason, suspected that such beliefs made me liberal a liberal.  Perhaps I was, given how liberal policy was expressed then. 

But times change and have changed even more in the past 6 years. Those who have for so long trumpeted their right to RIGHTS have decided that one of the rights that was important to me was wrong.  Mind you, of all those rights, this RIGHT is enshrined specifically among our Bill of RIGHTS as the second amendment.  So, with the increased polarization of the society, in most cases created by an intense hatred for our current POTUS, they now abandon me and my right.  Being a gun owner makes me somehow a second-class citizen in the eyes of those for whom I have advocated, those who have screamed for their rights - but clearly they meant ONLY their rights.

But it has gone well beyond that. I have also become a "toxic male". I am where I am because of "white privilege".  I am a primitive because I am a "cis-male" - because I am a heterosexual. So when you ask me to support gay marriage, abortion, transgenderism, a "living wage" and universal pay, socialism, legalized drug use, or any other of the long list of recently discovered rights, remember this fact; you can't kick me in the teeth and expect my support.

I cannot say it better than Williamson has:

"- First they came for the blacks, and I spoke up because it was wrong, even though I'm not black.
-  Then they came for the gays, and I spoke up, even though I'm not gay.
-  Then they came for the Muslims, and I spoke up, because it was wrong, even though I'm an atheist.
-  When they came for illegal aliens, I spoke up, even though I'm a legal immigrant.
-  Then they came for the pornographers, rebels and dissenters and their speech and flag burning, and I spoke up, because rights are not only for the establishment.
-  Then they came for the gun owners, and you liberal shitbags threw me under the bus, even though I'd done nothing wrong.  So when they come to put you on the train, you can fucking choke and die."

Still strong.  Not going anywhere. And remember that no means no. All these years later, I have even less faith that this ever ends well.  Perhaps I no longer even hope that it can.

Good luck defending yourselves and getting someone to support your rights. I'm out. Stay away from me.

Irreconcilable Differences

Another good one from Kurt Schilling. Hits the nail right on the head.

Sad thing is how the progressive liberal movement had abandoned any coherent agenda in favor of an opposition agenda.  They will take any position - ANY POSITION - as long as it is in opposition to the traditional American position.

From Shilling's piece:

Does a national break-up seem a bit extreme? A bit excessive? Can’t we all just get along? My pal Jesse Kelly has long been calling for a national divorce (and when I realized I was mining a related vein for comedy gold, I called him up and got his OK to use my break-up metaphor because I am not a mainstream media hack), but I used to be pretty confident Normals and libs could reconcile. Now I’m not so sure. After all, in a world of Covington Kid lynch mobs, nuke-curious congressjerks and Democrats siding with anti-Semites, female abusers, and blackface pols, it’s become painfully obvious that liberals hate us Normals and want us dead or enslaved. Call me picky, but I’m not really down with that.

So "What about the children" goes out the window when it is useful to throw them under the bus - no matter whether they belong there. Concerns over racism and sexual assault - not that big of a deal with the perpetrator has a "D" behind his name.  Anti-Semitism - no problem - anti-muslim - OMG! Nancy Pelosi - pro-environment is saving God's creation...pro-abortion? Meh!

thing to have positions that many people will not agree with.  It is another to so lack integrity that your positions and values shift when it suits you.

Victor Davis Hanson's "Autopsy of a Dead Coup"

An excellent read by VDH, summarizing all of the efforts to derail the Trump Presidency over the past 2 years. For anyone who has been watching closely during that time, it is a cogtent and insightful analysis of how the silent coup was organzied and enacxted.

The good thing is that those who attempted this coup overplayed their hand. Just as most of the current crop of crazies (e.g., Harris, Warren, Booker, AOC, Omar), they believed so strongly in their own hype, that they shed the veneer of civilization and showed their true positions.  If Trump accomplishes nothing further in this term, he has illuminated the complete craziness of the progressive movement.

See and hear no evil!

A great article from David French at National review.

Notable quote:  "The United States is facing a puzzling paradox. Even as gun crime has plunged precipitously from the terrible highs of the early 1990s, mass shootings have increased."

1.  Guns have been with us for a long time.  In the past they were more available than they are now. Perhaps as close as we got to this new tragic phenomenon was Charles Whitman in the UT Clock Tower.

2.  So what has changed in the years since then?  More and more restrictiona on gun ownership have been proposed and enacted.  More guns are in the hands of law-abiding citizens.  As French notes, gun crime is down, but this new form has arisen. As with most of our current problems everyone will find their convenient demon to blame that will help them avoid looking too closely at the facts.

3.  How is it guns?  The best answer is it is easier to blame the convenient devils; guns and gun owners and the NRA than it is to look yourselves in the eye and see that the tearing down of the moral structures that created the nation, the disdain and hatred for those who maintain law and order, the relativist morality, venom toward the traditions that created the society you now languish in, and your general sense of individual importance and entitlement have lead to this mess. You have reared a generation of potential monsters with your reverence for single parenthood and your inability to set limits and create fully functioning human beings.

4.  You must know that as much as you hate law enforcement, you will need those police you despise and the military you disparage if you ever hope to even attempt take guns away from the law-abiding populace. I suspect many of them, like the sheriffs in several jurisdictions who are refusing to enforce unconstitutional restrictions, will not comply with orders to fire on their fellow citizens.  You had better check that attitude.